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Here are some colors that are predicted to be big in fashion for the upcoming 2007 Spring/Summer fashion lines. As most of you know, scrapbooking usually takes many color/style cues from fashion and home decor lines, so it will be interesting to see how many of these colors actually end up flooding our paper and embellishment lines! I am predicting lots of purples mixed with neutral colors, such as black, grey, and white. What are your predictions? I am loving the peachy-salmon colors - those are my favorites!

Just a quick Christmas card I made for Scrappers Blissusing Three Bugs in a Rug's Holiday line of papers and rub-ons. The star at the top is Fancy Pants chipboard that has been painted with a red leafing pen by Krylon.

Here is a layout that I created for Scrappers Bliss using the "Laguna Guy" line of papers by Junkitz. I love the Heidi Swapp chipboard letters - they are addictive! And yes, that is a coluzzle template that he is looking through in the middle black and white photo - he is a silly kiddo!

Just posting a layout that I created for the new challenge posted over on the "Designing with Color" blog. Love the "DW" girls! What a great challenge; and I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

And this is how my scrap studio looks after I have created a layout. Pretty messy! I confess to being a "piler". Sometimes I even create pages on top of piles of paper and embellishments! Usually, I will clean up completely before starting a new project, because I dislike working in a messy area, although from the looks of this picture, I am sure you will beg to differ with me. LOL! I have been working on several projects this past week, including my first assignment from BHG as a Creative Team member, an article and layout for Chatterbox, and a few other surprises I have up my sleeve! One of those surprises involves travel to a place FAR away, so I am really excited about that!

I am waiting for pizza to arrive so I don't have to cook tonight (bad, lazy mom! LOL!) and I keep staring at this mess on my counter top, knowing I should clean it up. Maybe after a couple slices of pizza I will be more motivated. Alright, who am I fooling?

I am going to be a guest designer for a kit club web site next month, so that will be fun! I love kit clubs, although I don't belong to any of them. Leave me a comment and let me know who your favorite kit club is! You can be my enabler!!

I got some really good scrapbook related news today from a dear friend of mine and I am so excited for her. I can't spill the beans, but she should be able to, soon! When she does, I will link you to her great news. You know who you are - I am SO PROUD OF YOU! You are going to rock the house with your work!

So how was your Labor Day? Mine was great! The weather here in Texas today is gorgeous and it hasn't been as hot as it normally is. I was told that it actually rained here over the weekend! We haven't seen rain in what seems like forever. Fall is my favorite weather, so we are finally getting close to the crisp, cool days that call for sweatshirts and sneakers. My favorite!

Matthew came home yesterday with his latest "dilemma" - he has 3 different girls wanting to go to Homecoming with him! He has given it great thought and has finally figured out who he is going to ask, so cross your fingers that she says yes! I will keep you updated. This year is going so well for him so far. It is nice to finally see him genuinely happy and feel "at home" once again.

Ok, I really am going to clean up this mess, now. I will update again later!

Finished up a layout for Scrappers Bliss tonight so I thought I would post it. :) This one is about the pink Converse shoes that Domonique got from my dear friend Thena last November for her birthday. If you click on the layout, you can read the journaling.

Well, we got through the day! We did not turn on the TV. Thank you so much for the calls and e-mails; it really warmed our hearts. We were going to plant a tree today in our back yard, but when we went to Home Depot to look at the trees, most of them were dying from the extreme drought we have been having, so we decided to wait. It was a gorgeous day, here - clear skies and the temperature was in the upper 80's. We took Alex to the park, Domonique went to a football game with some friends, and Matthew played in a community band up at the high school (he gets community service hours for it, too!) so we all had something to do.

I am working on my first assignment for the BHG creative team, so I am really excited about that! I am also working on an article and layout for Chatterbox, so when I can, I will post them here.

Ok, this may seem like a simple layout, but I created it for the sentiment and wanted to keep it clean and graphic. The "swirls" are dots of white puff paint. If you click the layout, you can see the journaling better. Again, I am a firm believer in flowers for boys/men, too. HAHAHA!

Tonight I had a great talk with Matthew after he got home from the mall/dinner/movies with friends. First of all, now that he is in tenth grade, he has really started settling in better, here, and is making all kinds of new friends. I am so relieved that he finally seems happy again. I know that 9th grade was a tough time to go through losing your friends and changing schools, and that changes can be very hard to accept, but let me tell you - our whole experience has really taught us a lot about accepting changes, learning tolerance, and not passing judgment against others unless we truly know what it is like to be in their shoes. This was a good portion of our heart-to-heart talk that we had tonight, and it is one of those conversations that you hope to have with your teenager; one that makes you walk away and feel as though no matter what has happened or will ever happened, you have done something right. :) He really is a great kid. I am very blessed and I don't take these three kids for granted for a second.

My mom just left after stopping through on her way to Nebraska. When my stepdad passed away, she put most of her things (and his) in a storage building. Here it is three years later, and she finally felt as though she had the strength and means to go through the items and get rid of a lot of stuff that she was ready to part with - you know, things like his old clothes, tools, and just general things that she doesn't want to haul around and store anymore. She brought me some things that she wanted me to have, but one of the best things of all - a huge stack of framed pictures of my kids that I lost in Katrina! I had given her copies years ago when the original portraits were taken, but she selflessly gave me hers so that I would have them again. I cried. It is the most incredible thing! Also, she had some of my things such as a copy of my senior announcement, some of my childhood letters, toys (my original Care Bear!), school certificates, one of my old diaries, and numerous other things. She gave me letters that I had written to her when I was little, cards I had made her, and so many other priceless things. This time I want to scan them and scrap them and not sit around wasting time like I did before!

When I was in Idaho, Melody (Ross) told us Chatterbox girls about how she makes prints on a regular basis of the snapshots she takes of her family. The ones that she doesn't scrap right away, she puts into albums and leaves out where her kids and others can look through them any time they wish. It made me feel horribly guilty, as ever since I went digital I have just been hoarding all these photos on my hard drive; not sharing them with my family or making them accessible. I swore when I got home, I would start ordering prints as I could and do the very same thing. Well, you know how time can slip away and our intentions fall aside to make way for other priorities. Alas, I haven't yet ordered any prints. However, after this visit with my mom and looking through her photos/mementos, I realized (again) how important it is to have these photos out where my kids can view them, laugh about them, relive the experiences, and just reminisce - good times and bad. So this week, I am ordering prints.

And I urge you to do the same.

Oh - and the Tahoe - well, we got it out of the shop but it is still blowing hot air worse than a crotchety old lady so we are taking it back to the mechanic Monday morning. They think it may be a "bad compressor from the factory". LOL Whatever! Just fix it already! So there is the vehicle update. Thanks for all the hugs! I sure needed them! Y'all rock. Again, I am so blessed. Thank you.